Volume 8, Issue 1 STAR WARS, Expanded Universe, Legend, Canon? « I thought he was a myth! » June 2018 29-45 A Bridge and a Reminder: The Force Awakens, Between Repetition and Expansion Ana Cabral Martins University of Lisbon Abstract Reviving the Star Wars film franchise, after Disney acquired Lucasfilm, meant kick-starting a new trilogy that worked as a link between the old films and a new phase. The result was The Force Awakens, a sequel to a 30 year-old trilogy, whose characteristics are not those of a conventional sequel because it exhibits a very strong connection to the original Star Wars film, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). This essay navigates through the ways that allow for repetition, continuity and change to be intertwined within The Force Awakens, as the film fluctuates between designations and does not allow for easy labeling. Keywords: Star Wars, Cinema, Transmedia, Sequel, Remake A Bridge and a Reminder: The Force Awakens, Between Repetition and Expansion Introduction This paper is born out of a prompt for this special issue, “STAR WARS, Expanded Universe, legend, canon?”, that wondered whether The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015) should or could be called A New Hope 2.0. A quote from its director, J.J. Abrams, positions the new Star Wars film – the first of a new trilogy after the Lucasfilm and Disney merger – as both a “bridge” to the future of the franchise and a “reminder” of what made it so beloved by its fans and engaging to its audience. While The Force Awakens positions itself as a sequel, it is not a conventional one, as it comprehends a combination of continuity, repetition and change, additionally encompassing attributes of “blockbuster nostalgia” and narrative expansion. The connection to the original 1977 film (directed by George Lucas) is felt as The Force Awakens consistently borrows imagery and character beats, even mimicking the broad strokes of that original’s film narrative. At the same time, the film is a clear continuation of the original trilogy and a relevant illustration of what Matt Hills calls “generational seriality”. This article, then, will engage with theoretical concepts regarding media narrative repetition, continuity and change in order to demonstrate the ways in which The Force Awakens either oscillates between or combines multiple tendencies – taxonomy-wise – and, hopefully, will be adding to our current understanding of sequels, remakes, reboots, revivals and other multiplicities. The film is in a suitable, though not unique, position to exemplify some of the trends in contemporary Hollywood storytelling, including the penchant for mining nostalgia in contemporary blockbusters. Star Wars and nostalgia In Flickers of Film: Nostalgia in the Time of Digital Cinema (2015), Jason Sperb writes specifically about nostalgia as it relates to Hollywood produced blockbusters. The author uses TRON: Legacy (2010) as a specific case, but only as a symptom of a larger trend. According to Sperb, the Hollywood film industry has endeavoured to “negotiate a powerful nostalgia for the 1980s that pervades a great majority of high-profile films, while also reflecting in explicitly visual ways the affective power of such anachronistic nostalgia”. As a result of this trend, the Hollywood film industry’s blockbuster production favours an endless number of “reboots, remakes, sequels, and prequels that continually attempt to exploit (…) the value of existing media franchises in ways that both foreground and elide their own nostalgia” (Sperb, 2015: 36). 30 Kinephanos, ISSN 1916-985X “ STAR WARS, Expanded Universe, Legend, Canon? « I thought he was a myth! »”, June 2018, www.kinephanos.ca A Bridge and a Reminder: The Force Awakens, Between Repetition and Expansion Similarly, Kathleen Loock, in her chapter “Retro-Remaking: The 1980s Film Cycle in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema” (2016), also explores this cycle that “consists of high- concept blockbusters based on feature films and televisions series of the 1980s” (Loock, 2016: 277), underlining how both the film and television industries have been comparably influenced. The author’s use of “remaking” in this chapter is significant as the author uses it, not in a conventional or restricted sense concerning the production of a film remake, but as a (lucrative business) “practice that generates different cinematic formats of innovative reproduction, such as the film remake, the sequel, the prequel, or the spin-off” (Loock, 2016: 278). This general practice of nostalgic reproduction is one that has enabled the production of The Force Awakens and the rejuvenation of the Star Wars transmedia franchise. Jason Sperb deepens the debate around the continuous exploration of older IPs, and, thus, of the nostalgia well, by de-centering the discourse away from questions of originality (or lack thereof) and focusing on “the much more elusive and powerfully real affect of nostalgia” (Sperb, 2015: 36). As mentioned above, although Sperb focuses on TRON: Legacy, the recognition of particular “interconnected historical and theoretical contexts” that led to this film are ones that equally frame the re-launch of the Star Wars transmedia franchise under the Disney banner1: the general “ubiquity of nostalgia for the 1980s in Hollywood popular culture”, evidenced by the consistent revitalising of cultural objects of that era (the original Star Wars trilogy was released between 1977 and 1983); the fact that nostalgia had, in turn, already fuelled and informed the 1980s film production (Star Wars was heavily influenced by Flash Gordon and early cinematic serials) that Hollywood and audiences feel nostalgic for; and, lastly, Disney’s consistent and historical “dependence on the aesthetic and industrial value of nostalgia” (Sperb, 2015: 120), which has similarly informed its recent output of live-action remakes of old, beloved animated films (such as Jungle Book, 2016, or Beauty and the Beast, 2017). Regarding Star Wars, the franchise has been able to maintain its phenomenon-status and remains one of the most enduring and alluring narratives of the last century. According to Henry Jenkins, in the blog post “‘I Have a Bad Feeling About This’: Reflections on Star Wars, Fandom, and Transmedia” (2017) at Confessions of an Aca-Fan, the Star Wars transmedia 1 Disney bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas in 2012, for €4 billion, placing Kathleen Kennedy as president of Lucasfilm, reporting to Walt Disney Studios’ Chairman Alan Horn. 31 Kinephanos, ISSN 1916-985X “ STAR WARS, Expanded Universe, Legend, Canon? « I thought he was a myth! »”, June 2018, www.kinephanos.ca A Bridge and a Reminder: The Force Awakens, Between Repetition and Expansion franchise is a unique case given that “[no] other science fiction property [has] so totally saturated a generation’s media experiences”. In Will Brooker’s Using the Force: Creativity, Community and Star Wars Fans (2002), the author defines Star Wars (and, specifically the original trilogy), in relation to himself as well as many other fans, as “the single most important cultural text of our lives” (Brooker, 2002: xii). The author depicts the cinematic saga as “one of the key cultural benchmarks of the last thirty years”, which has afforded the films with a broad appeal that “also runs deep” among its fan base. According to Brooker, this is exactly what constitutes the uniqueness of Star Wars, as it engenders “full-on fan commitment at the same time as it continues to operate as a multi-million dollar global franchise” (Brooker, 2002: xv). Additionally, various authors have comprehensively documented the intense engagement of audiences, at large, and of fandom, in particular, as well as the place held by the Star Wars franchise as an object with a strong connection to both memory and childhood, as well as a globally influential, pop cultural text (Brooker, 2002; Harvey, 2015; Hassler-Forest and Guynes, 2017; Jenkins, 2015; Proctor, 2013). Specifically regarding this franchise, nostalgia has worked as powerful affecting force that is lucrative due to its cultural importance, its generational appeal and widespread audience willingness to continue to engage with the world of Star Wars (Proctor, 2013). In William Proctor’s article “‘Holy Crap! More Star Wars? More Star Wars? What if They're Crap?’ Disney, Lucasfilm and Online Star Wars Fandom in the 21st Century” (2013) – which was an attempt at mapping and illustrating “the gamut of responses experienced by fans in relation to the next phase of the Star Wars mythos in cinema” (Proctor, 2013: 198) – the author discerned that, in response to questions regarding the continuation of the film saga, while some fans didn’t necessarily agree with the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney, they were “buoyant about the potential for new films and other products” (Proctor, 2013: 219), so as long as they stayed “true” and faithful to the “spirit” of the Star Wars universe” (Proctor, 2013: 223). A new phase of the Star Wars franchise The purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney led to “multiple new directions for the franchise, ahead of the launch of the seventh film in the main saga and various spinoff films”, as Colin B. Harvey addresses, in Fantastic Transmedia – Narrative, Play and Memory Across Science Fiction and Fantasy Storyworlds (2015). Lucasfilm created a story group to control all narrative 32 Kinephanos, ISSN 1916-985X “ STAR WARS, Expanded Universe, Legend, Canon? « I thought he was a myth! »”, June 2018, www.kinephanos.ca A Bridge and a Reminder: The Force Awakens, Between Repetition and Expansion development